Chinese Scroll Painting - Essay Example

Chinese Scroll Painting The history of Chinese painting s back to Neolithic period (about 5000 years ago). The major formats of the traditional Chinese painting are: wall painting, figure-painting, horizontal scroll, vertical scroll, round fan, single-leaf and double-leaf albums, and folding fan. Scroll was the first moveable form of paintings and became the most common of Chinese painting. While in the Western civilization the use of the scroll form disappeared in the early medieval time, it is still popular and quite significant in modern China. In this essay we trace the development of the scroll form of painting from the ancient times till nowadays. The horizontal scrolls developed first as a form of a scroll book and the paintings were not of the first importance, they had more an illustrative character. Later, the text more and more receded into the background (Cohn, 22). The motifs of the ancient paintings were in majority religious (influenced a lot by Daoism and Buddhism). Chinese artists use silk or paper as a support for the paintings. Silk is less absorbent then paper and allows painters to put few layers of color or ink for achieving finer lines and contours. Paper was used for more expressive and spontaneous paintings. Since the paper manufacturing was not good enough developed, silk was a preferred support for the scroll paintings in the early period. The scroll paintings are divided in two groups: vertical scrolls (hanging scrolls) and horizontal scrolls (hand scrolls). It is difficult to trace when the hanging scrolls appeared in China. For a long time it was considered that this form came from India along with Buddhism in the Tang period. The shape of the banner – a rectangular silk cloth that was carried in front of the religious processions – influenced the evolution of the vertical scroll in the Chinese painting. After the funerary banners in the family tomb of the Marquis of Dai were found (Fig.1.) it was no doubt that the form of hanging scrolls is native to China (Sullivan, 81). These T-shaped banners were divided in three sections: the above part represented heaven, in the middle was terrestrial world and at the bottom – underground. The most ancient vertical scrolls of the non-religious content are from Wudai époque and were used only as decoration. At this point the hanging pictures are very similar to western tapestry, though they are not meant as a long lasting wall decoration. A traditional Chinese house with its moving partitions doesn’t offer a good protection to the paintings, that’s why they were frequently moved. Chinese paintings are of the symbolic character and in the different rooms of the house the different kinds of picture are hang out. The pictures are also changed according to the season and to the special occasions such as marriage, birth of a child, funerals, etc. The Chinese vertical scroll is read like a script from top to down. At the top edge of the scroll a semi-circle wooden stave is attached and is used for hanging up. A massive bar fixed at the bottom edge of the painting makes rolling up smoother and faster. The roller is often decorated with the precious materials. It also gives the picture some rigidity when hanging on the wall. The ways of hanging as well as the materials and decorations vary from one period to the other. Hanging scrolls are about fifty centimetres in width and up to three meters in length. The form of the horizontal scroll offers greater opportunity to the artist since the extra pieces of silk or paper could be added while painting. The Chinese painters are not limited in space as the European ones. This is especially useful in painting of the mass scenes and landscapes. A horizontal scroll is composed of few scenes that are divided by the peaces of landscape, usually by a group of trees or mountains. The Chinese scroll has to be viewed from right to left and the viewed section should not exceed sixty centimeters at a time. The left hand unrolls the picture and the right one rolls it up. The beginning section of the scroll is usually left empty for the protective reason, the following section is meant for the title, and special sections of scroll serve as inscription panels. This particular way of reading influences the general composition of the painting. The hand scrolls were not meant to be permanently displayed and therefore were destined for a smaller, more selected group of viewers (Clunas, 48). That’s why the majority of the paintings were intended only for the court audience. They were kept rolled up and placed in the special case. The hand scrolls are about 20-30cm high and up to 10m long. The picture, being laid on the table or on the floor, unrolls like a film in front of the viewers. Due to the political instability China was divided in different states and in every state painting was developing in its own direction. The most ancient hand scrolls were found in the Jin state that boasted to be the land of the great painters and calligraphists. The subjects of the first scroll paintings were the same as of the wall paintings: religion, history, portraits of the court. Very often they had didactical character. The greatest artist of the early period was Gu Kaizhi (c.346-c.407); he was considered “the true father” of Chinese painting. None of his original pictures has survived, but he has still acquired a legendary status, both as a painter and as a writer on Chinese painting. The bright example of the 4th century painting could be The Admonitions of the Court Instructress to the Court Ladies (Fig. 2.) which is contributed to Gu Kaizhi but was preserved only in the later copies. This painting has been executed in a fine linear style that is typical for the fourth-century figure painting. Similar pictorial motifs were discovered in the contemporary tombs. ‘The Admonition’ is rather a didactic text each explication of which is illustrated with the appropriate scene. The scenes are still isolated and independent one from another. The figures appear suddenly and are very rigid. The movement is suggested only by the contour lines of the ribbons on the ladies’ clothes. The texts play structural role and accomplish the painting with an optical effect but we can already identify the connection between the characters without their help. ‘The Admonition’ plays an essential role in the development of the hand roll paintings from the scroll books: the major part of the text is replaced by the illustrative elements. The other work attributed to Gu Kaizhi, The Nymph of the River Luo, shows the further development of the early scroll painting. The groups of people are painted with the landscape in the background. Though ‘The Nymph’ still has narrative character, we can trace the evolution of the role of the landscape in the picture: it acquires an iconographic value and is not any longer just an element of the background. The landscape is very stylized but we can already distinct different types of trees. For the ancient hand scrolls was typical the repetition of the characters as well as coexistence of the real landscapes, legendary characters and the mythological creatures. The period of the Sui and Tang dynasties (VI-X centuries) is considered a Golden Age of the Chinese art. The themes of the scrolls are various (contemporary life, rural scenes, animals, architecture) and the different genres are represented (landscape, portrait, religious, caricature). Significant is the appearing of the monochrome hand scrolls (Fig.3.). In this period the horizontal scrolls were prevailing over the other forms. This could be explained by the fact that the painting still served for the royal family and the court. The majority of the pictures were painted on the order and not out of the artist’s inspiration. With the economic growth of China in the Song period the painting got popularized. In different parts of the country different styles of painting developed but landscape painting still remained predominant. The scroll painting undergoes the same changes as the Chinese painting in general. The main trait of the Yuan period was prevailing usage of paper as the painting support for the scrolls. Paper is cheaper than silk, which makes it affordable for every artist and not only for the painters of the court. In the Ming period we can trace the changing role of the vertical scrolls. The longest continuous picture in the world was found in southern province of the emperor Kangxi (Qing dynasty) and consists of twelve scrolls that make in total over 200 meters. While hand scrolls served more for the didactic purposes, hanging scrolls were used purely as decoration. The paintings were not viewed anymore just occasionally; pictures came to every house and became the inseparable part of the Chinese household. Even the poorest dwelling had several scrolls in possession. Though the modern art in China was influenced a lot by the West it has preserved traditional form and content. The horizontal and vertical scrolls are still the favorite formats. They are not rolled up any more; hand scrolls became shorter and are displayed at once. The artists still follow the traditions of Chinese painting: the picture presents traditional union of the painting and writing (Fig.4.). The fact that the form of scroll paintings has survived through the centuries and is the most favorable format in the modern China proves its important place in the visual art of China. Works Cited Clunas, Craig. Art in China. Oxford University Press, 1997. Cohn, William. Chinese Painting. London: Phaidon Press, 1948. Sullivan, Michael. The Arts of China. University of California Press, 1999. “The Admonitions Scroll.” The British Museum 19 Nov. 2005. http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=compass&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXSPFX_=graphical/full/&$+with+all_unique_id_index+is+$=OBJ2100&submit-button=summary “Traditional Chinese Painting.” 22 May 2003. Dragon Heart Chinese Folk Art. 20 Nov. 2005 http://www.folkarts.ca/chinese_art/traditional_chinese_painting_10016.aspx Read More